Partridge in a Pear Tree

So this is a bit over due, but I got distracted when I got home. I left Portland for the final drive home about a week ago. Well I’m hoping it wasn’t the final drive. I don’t think stopping will be that easy. I’ll have to take some side trip while I’m home.

I decided to drive east along the mighty Columbia River gorge and then track back west. I wanted to drive roads I haven’t ever driven to get home. That proved kind of hard. But it was interesting to go from west to east along the river. This is the western side of the state along the river – lots of trees and evergreen hills. But that soon gave way to the dry brown cliffs of desert east. Kind of neat to see the change. The whole drive along the river was dotted with Lewis and Clark historic markers. I stopped at quite a few of them to read about their trek and read the diary excerpts. I stopped to read about the Native American trading hub and waterfalls where they could catch salmon with nets as they jumped the falls to swim up stream…except there were no falls visible. How does that happen? Even if the river is damned and lowered in level, wouldn’t the water still have to flow over the rocks that created the falls to begin with. But no falls in sight…hmmm.


From the river I cut back west and drove through the Cascade Mountains and Mt. Rainier National Park. It was a pretty easy drive given that they had a massive flood last fall that wiped out most of the roads. The only evidence I saw were many downed trees clogging the streams. The one thing I did notice driving over the mountains were that they were the greenest darn mountains I had seen yet. Score one for copious rain.


I made it home and the first thing I did was give Chester (my car) a decent and proper bath inside and out. It had acquired quite a distinct smell. Then I had one great long sleep.




So looking back – this is how it sums up.

62 days on the road
10,430 miles driven
298 gallons of gas
1,083 pictures taken
21 states
30 National Forests
14 National Parks
2 oil changes
2 parking tickets
1 heck of good time
0 speeding tickets (yeah!)

I learned that good driving is free of competition and absent of pride. I happen to have a healthy dose of both, so…learning to swallow them was necessary at times. It also helped to drive back roads where there were no people. That probably also helped with the no speeding tickets.

So what’s next? I’ll keep you posted.